


Poppy-Eaters

by Spylace



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Assisted Suicide, Euthanasia, Gen, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 16:54:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/624436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spylace/pseuds/Spylace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>McCoy becomes an unwitting target when Enterprise is sent to investigate the death of five officers on a planet of dreamers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poppy-Eaters

There is a room inside his house that he knows very well. It smells of sickness and hurt, vomit on the bad days because no matter how far they’ve come, no one’s ever discovered a better puke-receptacle than a clean bucket.  
  
When his thoughts blur into static, when he’s been up too late or didn’t get enough coffee, he realizes that it’s a damned shame he’s a doctor and not... whoever designs buckets. He could build something new and marvelous and patent it out so he can maybe pay the useless motherfuckers out in the universe to find a cure for Collet’s neoplastic meningitis.  
  
His father heaves but nothing comes out. His once dark brown hair has faded to straw white, falling across his face in tired wisps. He pushes them away, kisses his knuckles and promises him there is a cure in the making. He’s babbling but he doesn’t care. He also knows that this is a dream but it doesn’t matter. At least in dreams, maybe he can make his father stay, live, last one more month until the cure.  
  
But he’s too late. There are two doors down the hallway already far, far away. If he can somehow make it out the door, outside, maybe he can find it (run) because he remembers the formula, remembers glaring at Taylor resentfully thinking where were you when my father asked for peace? But he never gets to say anything because he was the one with the gauge in his grasp, the poison dewing at the point of the needle as the house ripped apart.  
  
He has nightmares sometimes. It happens.  
  
+  
  
The dominant species of Papaver II are short, petite and flawless red like something poured into a plastic figurine. Though humanoid from the waist up, their bottom half stands balanced on three legs, knobby-kneed and hoofed like those of a goat. Jim literally vibrates in his skin at the sight, his face cutting into a toothy smile like he has something to say that hasn’t been heard a million times before.  
  
McCoy rolls his eyes as the Papaverians raise their arms in greeting, rubbery fingers trailing at the end like many limp spaghetti noodles. Host to a pair of binary stars, they gave up their ambitions of interstellar travel long ago, seeding their atmosphere with toxic clouds that let up only two standard months out of the planetary year.  
  
Under the shroud of heavy rain, they spend most of their time in a glass-eyed daze, their dwellings not unlike the opium dens of the nineteenth century where its patrons indulged in decadence and dreams. They are touch-telepaths like Vulcans though limited in their abilities, able to read the scope of the other’s emotions but unable to share thoughts or force them.  
  
At first glance, they seem perfectly harmless. For once, his encounter with a newly discovered species does not involve fishing out primitive spears from anyone’s guts.  
  
But none of that matters when there are five fleet officers dead on their doorstep and no answers forthcoming.  
  
McCoy’s first impression is that Papaver II is a depressing place. They have arrived just on the cusp of the dry season, a mere week before the end of what the natives call the hungry month. While Jim does away with niceties, assuring the Papverian delegates that Starfleet in no way holds them responsible for the deaths, McCoy goes over the facts and finds them wanting, not only as a doctor but as a scientist and the part of the away team who was dragged kicking and screaming into a shuttle because they couldn’t simply beam down to this watery hell.  
  
His bag and pockets are bulging with enough hypos to supply a small city. The very atmosphere seems to press down on him as he stumbles out, weaving sideways on his feet—one break in their protective skins and they will have only minutes to reach the decontamination shower.  
  
Thankfully, the biodome of the five Starfleet officers on Papaver II remains intact and they breathe a silent relief as they slip out of their artificial skins. Although most officers who received posting here are Andorians on account of their adaptability to extreme climes, since the destruction of Vulcan, the Fleet has pulled all non-essential personnel from their posts to traverse the dark where Klingons and Romulans warred amongst each other and Cardassians lay in wait, content to see the two destroy each other.  
  
Though the U.S.S. Enterprise is the crown jewel of the Fleet, her crew all photogenically young and stylish, the fact remains that most of her crew does not have prior experiences in serving on a ship never mind on the front lines. Starfleet gave them this mission thinking that it would be a simple milk run: five officers on a remote, L-class planet, only one of them immune to its poisoned skies. As he goes over the data, something in his gut tells him that they are wrong.  
  
The death of the five officers is straight forward. It is obvious from the start that the Papaverian atmosphere is hell on the body if not the psyche. But the circumstances are odd. Out of all the teams in the past, why this one? The last person to die was the only Andorian of the outfit, Shaer, who showed signs of extreme paranoia and dementia before passing. If it was the fault of biology and environment, why had Shaer succumbed as the others had?  
  
McCoy, Spock and the two science officers review the information knowing that they are on their own. The cloud cover makes it impossible to beam anything aboard the Enterprise and as it is, communications with the ship has been difficult. All signs point towards poisoning, mass hysteria or suicide. Their progress halts.  
  
The Papaverians have their own way of respecting the dead and Scotty fishes out two bodies from the bog. The bodies are remarkably preserved, saturated with enough lead to drop a Ligorian mastodon. But the tainted blood work cannot reveal the cause of death and they are back to square one. They are all disheartened but Spock pushes ruthlessly on, seemingly as eager as he is to get off the planet and fast.  
  
At the very least, Shaer should have survived long enough to greet them. His last scans, though dated days before he died, indicate a healthy Andorian chan with a slight elevation in heart rate. The records indicate that afterwards, he accessed the medical units in search of stimulants, no reason given. The replicator in the mess area has been set to spit out coffee in the last thirty uses, some mere half an hour apart.  
  
Whatever it was, they all succumbed one by one, the Andorian Shaer last, writing down what little he gleaned from the deaths of his coworkers. The human anthropologist Nicole Kapoor was the first to show signs, insomnia followed by fits and panic attacks. Eventually, she stopped eating, subsidizing on IV fluids strapped to a biobed until she died.  
  
The entire progression of her symptoms took less than a month from start to finish. Grek, the Tellarite doctor in charge of her treatment had been devastated. He was the second death followed by the security officers Roen and Ruke. Shaer lingered for months after, alone, delusional and half-mad in his final moments, so certain that somebody was out to get him.  
  
It looks bad. There is a trade agreement between the Federation and Papaver II that must be upheld but they cannot simply disregard the accusations of a Starfleet officer.  
  
At the end of the day, they have stitched together the rough timeline of the events, starting from when Kapoor began exhibiting symptoms of sleeplessness culminating in Shaer’s death. If there is news, there won’t be a reply for another thirty-one hours. Spock informs him that the average planetary rotation of Papaver II is forty-six point four standard hours with a slight variation depending on the two stars it revolves around. He can tell that this impreciseness bothers him and hurries to hide his smile behind a cough. The Vulcan isn’t fooled.  
  
Back at the palace, the Papaverian royalty greet them with lazy-eyed patience and apologies at the lack of palatable fare. It is the hungry month, a time just before the dry, and they are rationing carefully before twin suns are to rise. Jim wisely feigns disappointment; Papaverian cuisine is toxic to most humanoids.  
  
As they carry out conversations over plates of excruciatingly pink stew and Fleet-issue MREs, McCoy wonders about the Papaverian metabolism, whether if it is the result of evolution or intelligent design.  
  
If the dense atmosphere is artificial, it stands to reason that Papaverians did not always consume the same level of chemicals. Any signs of staple crops, domesticated herd beasts or a wealth of wildlife, are gone now, sunk deep into the septic earth. But the mold, Papaver II’s main export and a medical goldmine for disease specialists everywhere, grows effortlessly like a well-watered weed, sopping up poison with its spongy body when all else croaked when the first rains fell.  
  
“A doctor you say?” Queen Belangeri addresses hesitantly when introduced. She looks puzzled at his appellation as though he is a novelty to behold, a healer among what she believed to be the warrior castes of Starfleet. “And you will... _know_ what befell on your people?”  
  
“Yes ma’am.” He answers. “Hopefully, the autopsies will reveal the cause of death.”  
  
“You must be very wise.” Princess Argemone thrills pleasantly like a songbird in a berry patch. “And very powerful to know so.”  
  
McCoy smiles a little as he spoons more of the reconstituted mush into his mouth. “No sweetheart, I’m just an old country doctor.”  
  
While her parents are quick to excuse themselves, the Papaverian heiress Argemone is fascinated by the strange new alien dignitaries. She follows them around everywhere, accompanied by her honor guards, poking at and questioning everything until she slips and falls across the slick tiles of the biodome.

No one had the heart to keep her out, not even Spock, bless his pointy ears and idiosyncrasies of logic. So it is doubly surprising when her cries split the air in frightful, heaving sobs.  
  
Used to the briery cuddliness of Vulcans, McCoy isn’t sure how to deal with a Papaverian even with the artificial skin. Kapoor’s notes hadn’t been real clear on their touch etiquette which, in hindsight, seems like the most obvious topic of research on the goddamned race one’s studying but he can’t very well leave a little girl crying on her knees and the others, who could have taken his place, Jim, with his devilish charm, and science officers with better bedside manners, all blanch at the dark ooze that bubbles from the girl’s knobby ankles.  
  
He pulls her up with a hesitant hand, slightly reassured when she shows no aversion to his touch. Her honor guard, who should have been the one to comfort her, stares at him guardedly as though assessing his level of threat before turning away with a grunt, averting his eyes.  
  
Afterwards, Argemone clings to him like a burr on a dog’s tail, dark eyes glittering in delight as he explains to her what he is doing and why.  
  
“Someone’s got a crush.” Jim sing-songs and McCoy scowls in answer.  
  
“What are you, five?”  
  
Jim gives this question due consideration. “I don’t know Bones. Does that mean I should watch out for,” he puts on a horrified face, pushing his cheeks up comically with his hands. “ _Cooties_?”  
  
McCoy rolls his eyes as he liberates the decisively non-regulation candy bars from his captain’s hands. “Unbelievable.”  
  
+  
  
He opens his eyes and thinks—he knows this place, he knows this house, and he knows what is about to happen.  
  
A man lies in front of him, pale as corpse, his bony hands waving uncertainly in his direction. He catches it before it falls, imbuing generous warmth back into the mottled skin. But he sees the pale blue eyes and hears the telltale rasp and gurgle in his ears. He tells his father, his words muffled as though hearing it through his ears had been stuffed full of cotton, that there is a cure; he is going to be okay.  
  
But David McCoy shakes and shakes and doesn’t stop shaking. The entire room shakes with him as though they are caught inside a jar and some child, some divine being, holds the universe in his palms and his shaking it up and down hoping to see it explode.  
  
He has to get out of this room.  
  
Desperate, he tries to carry his father out but cannot lift him. He is too heavy. He tries the comms, all signals are down. He tries yelling for help, the nursing aide isn’t there. His vision narrows into a single focus and it is the door, beyond which lies a hallway and an open window. And as though reading his thoughts, his father turns to him with accusing eyes, mouth held open in the rictus of a scream.  
  
+  
  
McCoy falls out of the chair where he’d fallen asleep, heart hammering and going a mile a minute as he answers his comm, skin clammy beneath the artificial suit. Jim’s voice fills his ears, wondering why he hasn’t come back already since he was the one who warned them that the dome might be dangerous even with the environmental controls in place?  
  
For once, he is grateful for the rain, grateful that the toxic sludge that disguises the fact that he sounds as though he has gone on a three-day bender with Scotty.  
  
“I’ll be there Jim.” He promises and signs out. Sinking back into his chair, he buries his face in his hands.  
  
+  
  
The autopsy reveals nothing. Shaer’s body is perfectly preserved, his teal skin greyed and petrified organs which had been expected. When they crack open his skull, the brain is black and putrid like a bowl of blueberry preserves.  
  
“If this is murder, it’s the perfect crime.” McCoy says wryly as he stretches out the arms. Initially, they had thought the heavy scarring across the wrist and forearms defensive wounds. Now he knows that they have been self-inflicted in order to drive out whatever demons haunting the Andorian officer.  
  
“Hell of a thing.” Park concurs, taking samples. “Poisoning on a poisonous planet?”  
  
“But these chemicals are not toxic to Andorians.” Spock refutes. “Also, it is highly unlikely that the five officers were subject to the same compounds.”  
  
“So either this was just a coincidence or...”  
  
He shakes his head. “We should be so lucky.”  
  
+  
  
She pulls him away from the others, away from the communal hall and the glass-blown suites to which they were assigned. Dizzy, he stumbles after her into an open atrium where the rain falls straight onto the floor and splash radiant orange and gold across its pocked surface. Princess Argemone crosses the circle easily, careless of the oily slickness that sticks to her knees.  
  
Rubbing his arms just to feel the slippery tug of his artificial skin, McCoy stops in front of the portrait of the royal family: Queen Belangeri, King Fugax and Princess Argemone along with a fourth figure half-hidden beneath the leafy drapery, staring down at him with a reserved expression.  
  
“Who is that?” He asks.  
  
At first, he thinks it is Argemone. But the princess is sitting in a languid sprawl at her parents’ feet, shamelessly displaying her youth. The girl behind them is older, her legs straight and perhaps not quite as widely set, ankles as slim as champagne glass.  
  
She is beautiful in a way all mysteries are, slashed by shadows, her third leg pivoting against the marble stairs as though caught off guard by the nameless painter. It is obvious that she is loved and was loved well, the predecessor to the little girl who now held his hand.  
  
“Oh _her_.” Argemone’s fingers wrap around his like a ball of worms, causing him to shiver despite their warmth. “She was my sister. Mother told me this is the only picture we have of her.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
She tilts her head back in consternation as she puzzles his words, pointed teeth scraping her lower lips. Before he could say anything more, she skips excitedly in one place, her face flushing a dusky rose. “Silly!” Argemone teases, curling her body against his with a delighted smile. “Rhoeas isn’t dead. She’s just sent away!”  
  
“What?” McCoy asks, bewildered. “Why? Is she sick?”  
  
“No” She answers simply. “She just did a very bad thing.”  
  
+  
  
It is an impossibility.  
  
He sits at his father’s bedside, feet warmed by the square of sunlight. The bees are buzzing, pleased at yet another winter come and gone, the morning air brisk and cold but buffered by the promise of summer. A puppy squalls, young and dumb enough to have stumbled upon a hive before being rescued and he allows a small smile to curl at the corner of his lips, his fingers trembling too badly to manipulate the settings, to pull up articles on ongoing research, progress, and show the man what could be possible if he would just live.  
  
There is a cure he tells, begs, his father, feeling like a bug trapped beneath the glass, waiting for a pin to strike it through the middle and to be put on display. There is a cure, he tells himself, he just has to get it. _Dad, you just need to hold on a little longer can you do that?_  
  
He knows this is a dream.  
  
There are exactly three doors in the hallway, one for his father’s deathbed, the other for the modified bathroom and the third leading towards the rest of the house. Around the corner, there is also a window with golden sunbeams leeching from its frame, the shadow of a peach tree caught on the glass pane, beckoning him from the outside.  
  
The heart monitor stutters in warning, weak and plaintive as though it is the machine that is dying and not just the man. But the machine cannot perceive what the eye can. He moves with syrupy-slow deliberateness that belies his anger, anxiety and frustration at being held in this position, cornered with a hypo in his hand, the clear vial of liquid tumbling inside until he can pick out the pearls of its chemical composition written in braille.  
  
 _What would Jim do?_ He wonders. He remembers Sunday school, the Ten Commandments which has long been rendered obsolete but regarded as the backbone of the Old South. What he is doing isn’t simply illegal, it is forbidden. It goes against every instinct he has made as a doctor, every oath and promise made on top of a million and one things that requires his signature.  
  
Blood dots the PADD but he barely gives it a second glance.  
  
It is 5.23 standard time.  
  
+  
  
McCoy sends his notes to Dr. Jackson, the ship’s counselor, to see if she can make heads or tails of it. He has a psychiatric degree himself but wants a fresh pair of eyes to see anything he might have missed. Five days planetside and he is certain that he’s not firing on all cylinders and it is laughable to ask Spock to suss out the idiocrasy of emotional beings.  
  
Lunch time is shared with Jim and Spock and they are no closer to figuring out what happened to the five-person team of Papaver II. Their strongest theory is that everyone went crazy from being confined to what was tantamount an underwater cage. Spock of course slaps this theory down arguing it was illogical that trained science officers would indulge in such display of histrionics. McCoy snarks not everyone was born a computer.  
  
The conversation further degenerates when Jim asks about the medicinal properties of the Papaverian mold. Despite their claims of shortage, he has been offered, on multiple times to take part in their communal ceremony of ‘sharing dreams’. An ensign was caught with a cup in his hands but thankfully before having taken a sip. He earned a demerit and is confined to the biodome for the rest of the mission, helping Scotty and his engineers keep their shuttle afloat.  
  
He winces. When applied to alien physiology, _human_ physiology, Papaverian mold has analgesic, sedative and hypnotic properties. But it is addictive as hell and toxic everywhere else. He personally wouldn’t prescribe it to anyone except under extenuating circumstances or for Andorians who can process the drug without suffering harmful effects.  
  
It is a flimsy theory at best. Unlikely that a doctor, an anthropologist, and disciplined military officers would indulge to an extent they fell prey to its effects.  
  
McCoy pushes around his reconstituted potatoes, feeling like shit and none of the hunger. He’s nodded off once already and it’s caught the attentions of Jim who sucks his teeth as though something is amiss and Spock who frowns so hard that he actually does. He grumbles and waves off their concern, only a shade of his usual, ornery self that it has them worrying even more.  
  
But neither of the cowards is willing to bring up the idea of rest, not when they’re essentially stuck here until they fly the ship back up for supplies.  
  
They’re tired, they have been working for days but he cannot explain the sudden weariness that sweeps past him with the force of a summer squall nor the inexplicable sense of wrongness that lines his stomach with dread. His eyes lose their focus as they start to droop, he feels Jim elbow him in the ribs.  
  
“Bones?”  
  
He opens his mouth.  
  
“I think there’s something wrong with me.”  
  
+  
  
As soon as he opens his eyes, he walks out of the room.  
  
Outside, the world is hollow, the colors muted and whatever birdsongs or dogs barking in the distance muffled like his ears have been stuffed full of cotton. He gets in a car, a rickety old thing with a real carburetor and runs on gasoline that starts up with an unhappy roar, scaring the neighbor’s chickens and sending them fleeing into the bushes.  
  
If he can get away from here, just for a little while, find a place for him to think, maybe he can get his hands on a cure unmade, save his father, escape the bright reflection of his mother against the glass window.  
  
What happens next is that he kills his father, his mother stops speaking to him, Jocelyn leaves him.  
  
He joins Starfleet.  
  
+  
  
Stop  
  
+  
  
“Doctor?”  
  
 _Get away from me._  
  
With a hiss of a hypo, he falls back to sleep.  
  
+  
  
No  
  
+  
  
Jim?  
  
 _Jim?_  
  
Jim, oh god Jim, you’ve got to get me out of here.  
  
+  
  
His dreams are lucid, clear in perfect technicolor like adverts on TV of things that can be his for the very low price of something-ninety-nine credits. They come in shades of rainbow, violet like the bruises under his eyes and blue like the Georgian sky. He feels as though he has seen every color under the stars and more seared behind his eyes.  
  
In the end, the murder of his father is bloodless, painless but that doesn’t mean his hands are any less stained. He’s just gotten better at hiding them over the years.  
  
+  
  
“Welcome back.”  
  
His return to the waking world is understated, anticlimactic. McCoy rouses with his head ringing, ears plugged and eyes wet from something other than grief. Across the room, Jim clutches his head making pained noises before realizing that no one’s paying the slightest attention. They are all busy running tricorders over his hunched form until he gets fed up with it and tells them all to go fuck themselves as he fights to get out of bed.  
  
“What happened?”  
  
He is groggy, he isn’t sure if he is awake this time or something else. But he needs to be awake and tracks movements as best he can before squeezing his eyes shut, utterly miserable. When he reopens them, Jim is back at his side, a pinched crease between his brows like he hasn’t slept in a while.  
  
“I was yelling at you and you passed out.” Jim says smally as he accepts a glass of water.  
  
“Aw kid...”  
  
“Don’t Bones, okay?” Jim’s face lights up with righteous indignation. “Fuck, you were the one who was always telling us to be careful. What the fuck man?”  
  
“I’m sick.” He says, reminding himself as well. Jim stares at him with cornflower blue eyes, large and luminous against the strained pallor of his face. “It can’t be something I’ve eaten.” He says quickly, mind whirling despite his newfound exhaustion. “And I didn’t go anywhere...”  
  
“You were away from us last night for 0.91 hours. Did something happen?” Spock says with Vulcan accuracy. He arches an eyebrow as though daring him to refute the statement.  
  
He had nearly forgotten.  
  
“Argemone, she wanted to show me something. There’s actually an open atrium in the palace if you can believe it. But it’s not like I went dancing in the damned rain.”  
  
“No” Spock says simply and leaves it at that.  
  
“What’s going on?” Jim asks in frustration. He levels a pointed glare at Simmons who holds a tricorder like he can’t believe what’s happening before his eyes. “Are you getting this?” He whispers furtively at Park who shakes her head in a negative. Or a positive, he can’t tell.  
  
He overhears Spock say to their captain, “If I can initiate a mind-meld...”  
  
“Do it.”  
  
“Hello?” McCoy says crabbily. “I’m still here you know.”  
  
But Jim’s glare is feverishly bright and no one can resist him in this state. He deflates, knowing that he has no choice, knowing that whatever is happening to him right now started with his dreams first and if the tried and true method of running a functional tricorder over a patient doesn’t work, they are going to have use more primitive methods of examination.  
  
Spock’s eyes are dark but compassionate.  
  
 _How unlike Papaverians_ he thinks.  
  
“Just...” He attempts feebly, waving his hand in a way that’s meant to convey be careful but ending up with Denebian slime devil.  
  
“I will proceed with the utmost care.” Spock replies solemnly.  
  
He sighs. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”  
  
+  
  
His father dies.  
  
It wasn’t by any means quick but he tries to make it painless. He breaks down in tears after, has to be pulled away from the stiff corpse. Thrown in jail for his actions, he is sprung by morning and spends the entire week boozing away because he forgets that he has a life, he has a job, he still has his mother and a pretty wife who has moved out a month ago because he honestly hadn’t noticed.  
  
He has everything else only no longer a father because he killed him with his own hands using an old-fashioned needle and a plunger set only by his thumbs. And it cinches tight, the ceinture of his soul until it becomes a noose and he just needs to find a tree branch strong enough to hang himself. He wants to marinate in beer until the world ends and by the third, half a bottle of whisky at a second bar of that evening, the barkeep cuts him off, calls him a cab and manhandles him into its battered seats.  
  
The house that his father lived in is now empty, the sterilizing scent of antiseptics and cleaning liquids cloying and harsh, disgusting if he thinks about it long enough because it tries too hard to cover up the underlying scent of pain and distress, the suffering the walls, the staircase and the doors bore witness to.  
  
He takes one last look at the hallway, its three doors and the window that shines moonlight from around the corner and promptly vomits at his feet, the warm bile spreading between his toes.  
  
He holds a bucket to his face, retching violently at the images, memories, burnt inside his skull until nothing else comes up and he is gagging because he wants to delay the inevitable, press his ears closed until all he can hear is the persistent thrum of his heartbeat.  
  
Jim is pressed at his side, mopping his face with a golden sleeve like he’s not the goddamned captain and he’s not something that should be thrown out of airlock he is that pathetic.   
  
Spock draws a sharp breath at this thought and he realizes with a dull stab to his stomach that they are still touching, the Vulcan’s fingers remain pressed to his pulse points, the palms flushing green. He still doesn’t know much about Vulcan expressions, never cared to learn except the juvenile joy of riling Spock up, but he would almost say that he looked sad right there and then.  
  
“It was not your fault.”  
  
In the background, Jim quietly waves the others away.  
  
“I killed him, my hands.” He says, distraught. “I should have waited, made him wait, something. I killed my father because I thought being his son meant something. All it meant was that I was the least qualified person to make that decision. I was,” And here he laughs, “emotionally compromised.”  
  
“You granted your father peace.”  
  
He swears. “I had no right.”  
  
Euthanasia may be legal in the twenty-third century but the treatment of family members was not. There was a clear conflict of interests.  
  
“You said it took months for others to die.” Jim says, bringing them back to the matter at hand, focused on the present and not the death of his father still yoked to his neck. Perhaps out of all of them, Jim is least likely to relate to the situation. He never knew his father and at the same time, did, because everyone else knew him and his heroics. McCoy closes his eyes.  
  
“We don’t know the timeline after the initial onset, if there is one.” He rubs at his temples and is grateful when Spock considerately passes him a hypo. “Commodore Shaer only recognized the signs after Lieutenants Ruke and Ruen died.” He sags as the painkiller hits his bloodstream. “She’s hungry.” He says blearily. “She won’t let me go.”  
  
“She?”  
  
He blinks.  
  
“The Poppy Queen.”  
  
+  
  
Jim has the flat expression he knows very well. He saw it after the second failure at Kobayashi Maru, when he was told under no circumstances were his actions clever and in receiving news to turn back because the colony they were supposed to save had already been razed to the ground and there was nothing left, scorched black to its foundations.  
  
McCoy shivers, stifled under the layer of skin, the secondary suit, his uniform and the thermal blanket someone thoughtfully draped over his shoulder but he is cold, so cold like his feet are bare and he is walking one pins and needles, tempted to turn them over if the slivers of metal have pierced his toes. But they sit snug in his regulation boots, protected from the elements and he is confused. He sways, barely standing as Spock relents and takes his elbow. McCoy leans against him, pride be damned, as Queen Belangeri and King Fugax narrow their eyes at the accusation lain at their feet.  
  
He wants to sleep even though all he’s been doing of late is sleep. Park told him that Argemone visited once, greatly saddened at his illness but angry when told she couldn’t touch him. He is glad. She won’t get sick. If he is sick. He is unsure. It feels like he is. He needs to stay awake.  
  
The queen’s words are clipped and awful like taking a bite out of a sour apple.  
  
“Our people are traders and dreamers, what would we have to gain from harming your doctor?”  
  
“The girl.” Spock says suddenly. “In the portrait, what happened to her?”  
  
The queen flinches as though she has been slapped. It is Fugax who answers.  
  
“She is gone.”  
  
“Argemone told me that she was alive.” McCoy rasps. The king looks furious. Maybe. Despite their hominid face, Papaverians are surprisingly limited in their expressions, more so than Vulcans who have the distinct advantage of eyebrows.  
  
“She was banished for her perversity.”  
  
”For what?”  
  
Argemone appears shyly from behind her parents’ thrones. She holds a fist to her lips like she is guarding a secret. To his sleep-addled mind, it looks like there are worm spilling out of her mouth.  
  
“She ate someone’s dreams.”  
  
+  
  
“You can’t leave me here.” McCoy protests as Jim and the others suit up, preparing for a long trek into the swamplands where Princess Rhoeas lives in exile with a handful of her followers, bitter and angry that she has been passed over as the heir.  
  
Queen Belangeri warns them that it is unlikely that they will find trace of her, now or during the dry season. But he is fading before everyone’s eyes. He has quite literally become insubstantial overnight. “Jim—!”  
  
“We need to hurry.” The other man says brusquely, squashing a helmet over his head. “And what if she attacks you?”  
  
“She’s never even seen me before.” He protests. “How will she know me from Spock?”  
  
Jim shrugs.  
  
He wants to keep arguing but he is so goddamned tired.  
  
McCoy hugs him.  
  
“Be careful damn you. Come back in one piece.”  
  
+  
  
A wasp buzzes around his ear and he bats it away, not wanting to be bit. It returns moments later, persistent and angry, his arms too heavy to chase it away a second time. Out in the black with stars gone nova, he’s missed Earth, missed the sweet sunshine and the fertile earth. But not this damned much, not with his feet glued in front of the front door, poised to ring the bell.  
  
“Doctor? Doctor, Doctor McCoy!”  
  
He turns around.  
  
“Park, what are you doing here?”  
  
+  
  
“I was expecting you.” The witch-queen greets graciously, freeing her face from a shawl draped across one shoulder. She is startlingly young, her face red and smooth like a ripe cherry. “My mother warned me. She was always... sentimental.”  
  
“How?” Spock asks. “You have no technology capable of such task.”  
  
“You outsiders.” She harrumphs as she turns her back towards them, beckoning them to follow through a small alcove which has become her home. “I know. You think us weak. You think our gifts insignificant. I know why you are here but cannot tell you what you want to hear. Your friend, the doctor, he has been touched. It is already too late.”  
  
Kirk is not a man predisposed to violence but he has a finger on his phaser nonetheless, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.  
  
“You can stop this.”  
  
Rhoeas pulls her lips back as her expression morphs into one of exaggerated surprise. She holds it for a second, two, a parody of a million and one reactions that can be read easily off the human face. “You think I am responsible for this? How funny. How proud my sister must have grown to plot such a folly.”  
  
“Your sister... Princess Argemone?” He cannot equate the little girl and her doll-like prettiness with something that has killed five officers of Starfleet. “You’re saying she knew about this—that she planned this?”  
  
The place they stop is under a canopy of rocks and fungi, designed to keep one dry while keeping an eye on the bubbling swamp. In the soft silt, quicksand and sucking mud, Papaverians stand as one like red sheep grazing in the meadows, staring off into the distance, indifferent to their approach.  
  
“You do not understand. We are the people of Papaver II. We eat dreams to keep ourselves alive.”  
  
+  
  
Back at the biodome, McCoy cannot help the terrible providence that swells up inside him like the rising tide, threatening to swallow everything within its path. He paces, the artificial skin chaffing against his soaked skin. Knees falter at every turn as though he is walking on ice. He mutters one mantra after another, once even reciting the table of elements and expecting Spock to correct him after every misplaced proton. Others watch with anxiety and fascination, dismayed by the wreck of a man he has now become.  
  
“They’re wrong.”  
  
“Doctor!” Simmons grabs his shoulder, never expecting that he did pass hand-to-hand back at the Academy and while he will never be as skilled as Sulu, as strong as Spock or determined as Jim, in common brawls he has no equal as attested back in his third year, Jim’s birthday and the fight they started and finished victorious.  
  
The orderly goes flying over his shoulders and slumps against the floor. He stares, uncomprehending, body taut and wired and feverish, waiting for the next opponent.  
  
“Easy doc...”  
  
“I have to go.” He says numbly, fingers curling as he looks for the door. _Where did they put the door?_ He tries hard not to look at the bed where his father died and where he too will follow if he can’t get out. Scotty holds his hands out soothingly as though trying to grab a cornered animal. Something itched at the back of his head. “She won’t let me go.”  
  
+  
  
“In the past” Rhoeas starts in a magnificent voice, a storyteller’s voice that captivates them all and holds them fast in her spell. “Sharing dreams was a communal activity; we would partake in a daily tea ceremony and hold each other’s hands allowing colors to filter through our thoughts. When the sky went dark, it became most imperative that we continue this tradition for we lived on these dreams, becoming full and nourished by the memories of our forefathers.  
  
“It has always been this way for us. But overtime, only the strongest could ‘share’ dreams, offer our weaker brethren colors absent during the hungry months. We are often visionaries, leaders, and that is how my seventh grandfather became what you outsiders call ‘royal’. But all that changed when my mother’s father Postii became king. It wasn’t long before he stopped giving and started to take.”  
  
Beneath the clouds, the Papaverians stand with their mouths open as though threatening to drown. Kirk makes a sound; he must make a sound because Rhoeas is in front of him, a dainty hoof barring his way. Close up, he realizes that the princess has not escaped the hardship of living in the wild with only the mentally ill for company. She looks older than her reported age, her crimson hide streaked with oily deluge as though someone painted her with a gradient tool.  
  
“These are dreamers, what is left once my family has consumed them. They are well cared for, they are honored,” she spits, “for their services. But they are half the people they once were, they will never again shine like the dreams they fed us.”  
  
“But they’re alive.”  
  
“Yes.” She says after a thought. “But you outsiders cannot live without your dreams.”  
  
“Fascinating.” Spock comments, regarding the Papaverians with something akin to clinical curiosity. “A parasitic species evolved to prey specifically on the cognitive cycles of others, including those of alien species. They must somehow be able to disrupt the transition between REM and NREM patterns preventing delta sleep.”  
  
“Why weren’t we told of this?” He asks furiously.  
  
“We can only share dreams with those whom we touch. But most of all, the mind must be willing, accepting, and most of all, generous.” She reaches out with her spaghetti fingers, frowning when she touches the plastic helmet and not the warm flesh she was expecting. Behind them, the Papaverians snap out of their daze and dolefully canters up to the dry area where the security readies themselves, raising arms.  
  
“Emphatic.”  
  
“Yes”  
  
“But Bones never...”  
  
And Spock explains, “There was an incident in the biodome four days and thirty-nine hours ago. Princess Argemone accompanied us into the biodome along with her guards. She was injured after slipping on a tile. The Doctor treated her.”  
  
Rhoeas nods. “We found the minds of the blue ones incompatible with ours. Too rigid, like insects.”  
  
Realization dawns.  
  
“Commodore Shaer was half-Aenar.”  
  
The Papaverian shrugs. “My sister is... devious. It would have not taken her long to pry open their dreams. We did not know you would die without your dreams. When I found out, I tried to stop my family. But it had been too long since anyone had dreamed of something new. NicoleKapoor’s dreams were beautiful and they were bright. I was with her when she faded. She called us... _**alskjdf**_.”  
  
The word comes as a series of scratches through the universal translator and they collectively wince. His ears ringing, Kirk asks, “A what?”  
  
Rhoeas repeats dutifully, “I believe she called us ‘ _poppy-eaters_ ’.”  
  
+  
  
McCoy sprints out of the biodome, scalding his legs and spraying water everywhere. He vaguely noticed Scotty panting after him, swearing up a storm, colorful invectives that he hadn’t heard even at an ER back in Atlanta during a severe thunderstorm. Dripping over the tiled floor, he realizes that this is insane. He is insane.  
  
But he runs into the palace, past the guards who are dozing and into the royal hall where Argemone is waiting for him stretched out on the plush throne, a ball of fat and mold pressed to her cherry-black lips. He reaches out for her, determined to wrap a hand around her frail throat when his legs are swept from underneath him, Scotty bellowing at his back, a Papaverian guard sneering and spitting into his face.  
  
Her cloven feet tap the stone like piano keys. The world turns on its axis and McCoy gags, even though there is nothing left to bring up. Distantly, he hears Scotty shout and reaches towards him, struggling as he is pulled like a sack of flour across the wet floor. McCoy shivers, poison seeping into his veins, a hoof pushing down on his stomach in warning.  
  
“Now,” She said lovingly. “Sleep.”  
  
+  
  
“You cannot save him.”  
  
Rhoeas stares at him as though she knows he cannot possibly mean her any harm. The wall of Papaverian push in and Kirk has never been gladder to see a species without finger nails though Spock looks revolted when their fingers leave slime trails all across his protective suit.  
  
“Or?”  
  
“Or?” She parrots, arch. “Nothing. He dies.”  
  
“There’s no such thing as a no-win scenario.” Jim says grimly. “There’s got to be something.”  
  
A panicked yell and a red shirt has pushed a bold young Papaverian off with a kick. The Papaverian stands back up with no residual harm, a slight glimmer of fire in his ivy black eyes before it fades away. He wanders off; losing interest in whatever presence that had him enthralled.  
  
“Yes” Rhoeas answers. “You must kill the Poppy Queen.”  
  
+  
  
 _Come_ , she whispers as she skips through the summer fields. _Come_.  
  
He follows the girl unwittingly, as sick as a dog or maybe even sicker yet swift of feet, as though his body is not his own but a mere puppet dancing at the end of its strings.   
  
_Concentrate_ she warns him and he draws in a steeped breath, the balmy afternoon air warming his lungs. He moves slow like he is swimming through a sea of molasses, fingers clumsy and feet heavy as he finds himself in front of a door at a hallway’s end.   
  
His father wheezes painfully in welcome, bloodshot eyes dry and roving. Bloated, David McCoy is a stranger in his own bed. Though they have been through this many times already, he takes an unconscious step back, afraid.  
  
This time, Argemone does not bother to hide her presence and pops up like chanterelles after the summer rain. Her dark eyes glitter with mirth as she prances in the sunlight, her skin gloriously red like freshly drawn blood.  
  
“Len, please.” He turns his attention back to his father, the man whom he murdered. But he understands now, as he lies in the real world dying, what it entails to stand at the edge of the brink. If there is a god, he will be merciful. He takes a wrinkled hand and kisses it, tears running down his face.  
  
+  
  
“Why me?” he asks as his fingers ghost across the monitors, flecks of dust turning into golden motes in the bright sunbeams. “You could have asked Dr. Taylor. Why me?”  
  
+  
  
He pulls on the syringe and sees it fill up with clear liquid. Morphine is primitive, something used to treat people in Third World countries where hypos are rare. His father touches his wrist when he leans close to swab his elbow, a brevity of sensation that has him reeling and almost dropping the needle.  
  
+  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
+  
  
Argemone wails when the plunger depresses, emptying a lethal dose of morphine into her body. He stares in shock as the body under his hands shrinks and twists into red putty, pointed feet stabbing into his middle.  
  
McCoy wakes up on the middle of the floor in the royal palace when Scotty thrusts the girl away, sending her crashing on the floor where her guards lay broken limbed and groaning terribly for all to hear. The Scotsman searches frantically for a pulse where there is none, replaced by a crown of blond hair when a needle pricks his arm, barely felt through the pain.  
  
“...care! Beam him up, now, now, NOW!”  
  
“Jim?” He says clumsily through rubbery lips. Blue eyes search his reassuringly and McCoy sighs, content.  
  
Mercy.  
  
“I’m okay.”  
  
+  
  
“Captain?”  
  
Spock frowns at the odd sight of his captain flinching like a little boy caught out of bed at night, holding a thick duvet close to his chest and a defiant set to his spine.  
  
“He’s cold.” Kirk says defensively when Spock refuses to do the considerate thing and look away. Blushing, he tucks the thick quilt around his best friend, regretting it when Bones twitches and falls silent with a drawn sigh.   
  
The other man had never been a quiet sleeper. He’d snuffle, never snored exactly save for the nights they truly and well got plastered, but made little sounds, growled and huffed like he was laughing at something or someone he couldn’t in real life.  
  
Three days after the disastrous mission on Papaver II, Bones lingered in an induced coma, his body recovering from a massive toxic metal poisoning, uncertain whether it would ever regain its former strength and health. Argemone, along with her parents had been tried for their crimes and imprisoned under meters of stone while a new regime took power under Princess Rhoeas. Though luckily, no one had had direct contact with the royals, they took precautions labeling Papaver II a hostile territory, even with Rhoeas’ sincere assurances.  
  
They were let go once Rhoeas realized his genuine intentions in disposing her younger sister. But in the end, they were nearly too late. Rhoeas hadn’t known the extent of her sister’s greed. The others survived for months, carefully rationed by the people they were supposed to study. Once the royals had their pick of dreams and memories, they were devoured by the line of favorites, nobles and the upper caste powerful enough to simply take.  
  
Bones hadn’t been so lucky, he had proven too much of a temptation for Argemone to resist. The medical team, led by Dr. M’Benga nearly lost him twice to organ failure. Spock was literally greener than Sulu’s prized bonsai after every unconscious mental session, shaking at the mindless cruelty the Papaverian princess had wrought across the man’s mind.  
  
“Jim?”  
  
A fragile voice shakes him out of his reverie.  
  
“Bones!”  
  
“What happened?” Bones looks around the familiar setting of the sickbay, its pristine walls too white after Papaver II. A crease settles between his eyes as he registers him and Spock at his bedside, eyes straining towards the screen beside his head. He looks oddly vulnerable lying there in the reverse of every other scenario which would have had him grousing about idiot captains with no common sense and pointy-eared first officers who should know better. It draws him in, beguiles him into thinking it’s safe. Before he knows it, Bones is grabbing his face, pinching hard on his teeth as he turns it this way and that.  
  
“When was the last time you slept?!” He barks and Jim can only yell and fail as he is jabbed with a magically appearing hypo. Satisfied that he seems to be in sufficient enough pain to compensate for whatever stupidity he committed in the doctor’s absence, Bones sits up. Spock, the traitor, fails to notice the violence on his person in a timely manner.  
  
“Ow Bones, ow! You were in a coma!”  
  
“Like I can rest when I’m the only responsible adult on a ship full of infants!”  
  
Kirk exchanges a look with Spock.  
  
“What?” Bones snaps as he swings his legs down. They touch the floor. They are steady.  
  
There is a smile playing at the edge of Kirk's lips, one that speaks of fondness and relief. Already, the other man's ears are burning up with embarassment at the trouble he caused. But the skin beneath his palm is warm and solid. He can't wait until he is on the other side of the bed.  
  
“It’s great to have you back Bones.”


End file.
